When life gives you oranges, make puzzle games

We must be running out of kitsch puzzle game ideas. How else to explain a sequel to a game about rolling fruit under cover to avoid lethal acid rain that drops spiked baubles of death?

That's exactly what we're looking at with FDG Entertainment's Cover Orange 2. But hey - even if we're running out of cutesy environments, at least there's no shortage of fiendish puzzles and traps to solve.

Riddle

Much like in the iOS original, you're tasked with protecting fruit from a nasty-looking cloud dressed like a Valkyrie that comes riding in at the end of every level, lobbing ninja stars onto the level below and raining death on anything left out in the open.

IAPs explained

69p / 99c will get you the game, but you'll have to work your way through the levels sequentially, unlocking the next one as you go. If you want access to them all, that's another £1.99 / $2.99 on top.

It's a bad deal compared to Angry Birds. But if you've played that through, as well as the countless sequels, Cover Orange 2 is far from the most extortionate game on the App Store.

You're given a set number of fruit to save and objects to drop by triggering a Heath Robinson machine effect that culminates in all of your gormless oranges ending up beneath some form of shelter.

This might involve simply dropping a cinder block over a gap in the woodwork, or rolling a wheel into a bomb which catapults the wheel back up a ramp, across the level, and through a pane of glass, thus knocking the orange into an alcove before the acid rain arrives.

120 levels across several different time zones play out in this way, and the challenge and enjoyment come from working out the order in which to drop things.

Forecast: Cloudy with a chance of pain

The game plays like a combination of classic puzzlers. It contains traces of Angry Birds and Cut the Rope in its open-ended physics-based gameplay, and it boasts plenty of replay value because it lets you complete stages with varying degrees of finesse. A leaderboard provides added replay value for high score obsessives.

What lets the whole package down, however, is the sterile artwork: from the cutesy critters with dilated pupils to the irritating music, this is twee-by-numbers, like a bad fairytale picture book you'd find at the market.

There's plenty to like in Cover Orange 2's inventive, physics-heavy puzzles. It's just a shame that drab presentation works constantly to undermine your enthusiasm for the gameplay.